I love to express what I feel called to say. Writing helps me to open up my heart and do that. I hope that what I write helps you in some way. I hope it makes you think, encourages you, or inspires you. If it challenges you or if you disagree, I hope you know that I respect your right to have a different point of view.
Announcing my first “non-controversial” book! Beyond politics, history, and religion–just what America needs: 365 original, heart-inspiring statements and dozens of uplifting elephant illustrations!
Inspire yourself with 365 fun, original, and encouraging statements. You’ll smile, be inspired, and feel your stress melt away and your hope rise. The entertaining elephant illustrations scattered throughout the book will delight your eyes and your heart.
Enjoy the many uplifting thoughts and pictures or give them away to make someone’s day. Here are some samples:
#28) There are solutions to your problems. Even if you can’t solve them . . . time will.
#88) It’s best not to accept every thought that shows up in your mental app store. When a tormenting app pops up in your mind, don’t agree with its terms and conditions.
#158) Being overjoyed becomes a common occurrence when you believe delight is your destiny.
#297) If you’re looking for comedy, the best place to start is with your own behavior.
#320) When you feel like you’re stuck in darkness, look up. The night sky is amazing.
If you’re tired of overused motivational sayings, this creative “elephant” approach to positivity will be refreshing.
The skin You’re in, Even with Less melanin, Is no better Than the skin Others are in.
To look down on, or ignore people because of the color of their skin is a major flaw in the content of our character.Judging people by the color of their skin and using that as an excuse to devalue them, was and always will be evil.
To see skin-color-based slavery as a minor flaw in a nation’s history, but present-day mask mandates as tyranny is a major misconception.There was and is nothing trivial about melanin devaluation.
To enjoy your interior life embrace accurate, helpful thoughts and reject inaccurate, harmful ones.The interior life is a flowing collage of consciousness, concepts, thoughts, emotions, ideas, desires, reasoning, conscience, etc.
“It’s my life.” If you want your life to be truly yours, you must take control of your inner world.
Psychology tries to understand the inner life through intellectual analysis and research done on groups of people. Perhaps a more effective way to understand the inner life is through observing your own interior experiences and conducting your own experiments of your own inner world.
There is much about you that’s not observable from the outside. That’s your interior life.When your inner intention doesn’t match your external behavior, that’s called hypocrisy.
People can do the same thing for different reasons. Their exterior life looks the same, but their interior life’s very different.
A chaotic interior life ignores and drowns out God’s “still, small voice.”We can strive to daily align our interior life with God or choose live it in rebellion against Him.An unmanaged interior life stays overgrown with weeds and is unwelcoming to God’s spiritual seeds.You can’t align your interior life with God without humble, honest introspection and the willingness to admit where you’re off track
Genuine connection with the living Jesus occurs in the interior life, not in the exterior — “Christ in you,” not Christ around you.Jesus wants to be present and interactive inside you, not just for you to worship Him as if He is far away.If you don’t want an intimate, interior life with Jesus now, then you probably won’t enjoy being stuck with Him forever.
Interior life is often chaotic and conflicted, but ongoing, surrender to the living Jesus trains us to calm the inner storms.If Jesus isn’t continually changing and improving your interior life (your thoughts, desires, and emotions), check your connection. “Christ in you” will grow or diminish, depending on how you tend your inner garden.If you won’t hear and surrender to Jesus’ voice in your heart, hearing about Him from a preacher does little good.
Shall we talk? As long as racism is a closed-to-discussion-zone, it won’t ever be gone. Racism grows without thinking, but logic and reason make it shrink.
Racist? Perhaps racism is like lying. Most people will tell a lie, but few people accept being called a liar or will self-identify as a liar. Racism denial is widespread.
Racism-blind? It’s easy to be racism-blind and to fail to see the cruelty, horror, and evil of history’s color-based atrocities.
Color-blind? If you can recognize someone’s skin color, your definitely not color-blind.
Racism is effortless. It’s easy to think less of people because of their skin color and to overlook “the content of their character.”
Racism is sneaky. It’s hard to stop evaluating people by their skin color if you believe you aren’t doing it.
Racism sins. If you see someone as even slightly inferior to you because of their skin color, you won’t treat them as your full equal.
Being white doesn’t connect me with racist things done before I was born. I can admit the terrible details of those atrocities yet not feel guilt about them.
I woke up this morning thinking about how I would tell someone what it’s like to have the risen Jesus Christ freely living in me. Here goes:
Like a hand puppet, the more I let Jesus take control of me from within, the more animated and free I become.
As a concept, Christ in me is interesting, but as an ongoing, daily experience, it’s infinitely powerful and life-changing.
The living Jesus is like a sparkler in my heart, radiating never ending sparks of inspiration.
Christ in me isn’t passive. The living Jesus makes me continually aware that there is someone besides me living inside of me.
Surrendering to the continual embrace of Jesus is like a comforting, healing hug that never ends.
A religious teaching or program could never give me peace, but surrender to the risen Jesus releases peace that never ends.
Christ in me is a flowing fountain sending streams of glory in every direction (if I don’t shut Him down).
Like a spring in the desert, the living Jesus irrigates my heart and turns my desert into His garden.
The living Jesus creates an aliveness in me that shapes me and guides me in ways and to places that I wouldn’t choose to go.
Christ in me continually prompts me to move out of my comfort zone and into His discipleship zone.
The risen Jesus is the immovable Rock that keeps me stable and secure during all the turbulence that happens in my heart.
All humans eventually collapse like an empty space suit falling of its hook, unless we let the risen Jesus suit up and live in us.
Jesus said that He would teach His disciples and that they would hear His voice. He speaks to and teaches me everyday.
The risen Jesus shines His light so brilliantly inside me that I’m captivated by His glory and healed from desiring darkness.
Christ in me isn’t about imposing my will on other people, but about allowing Him to do His will in and thru me.
The living Jesus continually unleashes inner fire hoses of hope that keep discouragement from burning down my faith.
When I focus on the living Jesus as I read the Bible, He makes the words jump off the page and dance in my heart.
The more I give Jesus permission to live in and thru me, the more like Him I become.
It’s an incredible thing to realize that Jesus rose so that He can continue His life in me (and His other disciples) and to experience that reality through out each day.
Christianity: If it ain’t happening inside you, there’s a strong chance it ain’t happening to you.
